Mondays are reserved for the perplexities of students.
Question:
If the most general principles of the natural law are at some level known to everyone, why is it so incredibly easy to disobey them?
Reply:
I commented yesterday that widespread cultural adjustment to nihilism has happened before, for Buddhism is the nihilism of the East.
Western nihilism is different. We don’t follow the Noble Eightfold Path, because we no longer admire anything noble. Despite a few superman pretensions, ours is a nihilism for the vulgar.
Nihilism is the belief that everything is meaningless. Usually this belief is coupled with the view that nothing we perceive is even real – that the world is a mocking veil of illusion.
Mondays are for questions from students. This student hails from my own institution, the University of Texas.
Question:
St. Paul says, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
I suppose it is obvious that our rational inclinations include everything pertaining to seeking the truth, especially the most important truth, the truth about God. As the eyes seek to see, as the lungs seek to breath, so the mind seeks to deliberate and attain knowledge.